Comprising four separate operas, Wagner's visionary Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) took 25 years to complete. Centred around a ring of power and the attempts of various people to acquire it, the Ring cycle explores the relationship between love and earthly power and the themes of yearning and loss, all within a setting of medieval legend. The fourth opera of the cycle, Gotterdammerung, brings the betrayal and death of the young hero Siegfried and of his beloved Brunnhilde. The ring itself is restored to the Rhinemaidens, and the age of gods and heroes ends, as Valhalla burns. Stuttgart State Opera has been voted Opera Theatre of the Year six times by critics in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. "Lothar Zagrosek's shaping of the score is unerringly vivid." BBC Music Magazine, June 2004.